I’m looking forward to hearing/seeing this one. Here’s the blurb from Sony -

Recorded live in concert on July 9, 2007, “Gossip - Live In Liverpool” brilliantly captures and focuses the stunning ferocity, energy and intensity at the heart of Gossip’s groundbreaking meld of sound + politics. This incendiary concert showcase breaks out definitive performances of Gossip signature tunes including the band’s UK #1 Indie chart-topping smash, “Standing In The Way Of Control”; the UK Top 40 hit, “Listen Up”; and the #3 UK Indie track, “Jealous Girls” in addition to delightfully provocative covers of Wham!’s “Careless Whisper” and Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?”

“Gossip - Live In Liverpool” includes a DVD of the concert, lensed by documentary filmmaker and music video director Lance Bangs (Sonic Youth, Green Day, R.E.M., Death Cab For Cutie, Kanye West, Pavement, Mike Watt and more).

Gossip - Standing In the Way of Control (Soulwax Remix)

Aaron from A Weather sent us a message:

A Weather are celebrating the release of our new record Cove at long last this Saturday! We are playing at Mississippi Studios, show starts at 10:00pm and the glorious Carcrashlander will start the night. Tickets are available online at ticketweb.com. It is cheaper to get them ahead of time.

We will be playing our record Cove in full, from start to finish and we have our good friend (and Aaron’s K.’s wife) Alynn joining us on piano, organ, bells, tambourine and all the other stuff that is on the record that we don’t normally get to do live. Also we’ll be selling our world famous A Weather Fuzzy Buddies:
custom A Weather stuffed animals, complete with hand drawn capes and personalized name tags. Oh and you can buy Cove too on Vinyl or CD.

A Weather - Oh My Stars [MP3]

I love that publicity folk send me music everyday and I also love that I am getting them trained to stop sending me those plastic non-environmentally friendly CDs. [Have you ever wondered how much oil and energy it takes to make a CD, and how long it will live in a landfill...?] Anyway, I digress - back to PR folks - they also send me hyperbolic blurbs about their bands. The one that accompanied the fascinating new album from Portland’s AU is an example:

Between these disparate bookends lies the staggering aesthetic expanse of Verbs-the sophomore record from acclaimed Portland, OR. experimental pop collective Au-which, in its swirling depths and subtleties, promises to be one of this year’s most satisfying surprises.

And that was just the opening paragraph. These expansive rants are rarely helpful in giving me a sense of what to expect; they inevitably never match up to my listening experience - let’s just paraphrase ‘beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’ into the ‘ear of the listener.’

With Verbs, Luke Wyland, the architect behind AU has managed to wrangle a rather wondrous and vast sonic landscape of an album into a cohesive musical shape and form using multiple instruments while collaborating with multiple musicians, many of whom if not all are from Portland, Oregon. I dare say that when Wyland released the debut AU album last year the comparisons to Arnold Dreyblatt, Animal Collective, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Grizzly Bear may have been correct [I never heard it.]

On Verbs the resulting sonic landscapes remind me more of Bjork and Sigur Ros in the way multiple vocals and vocal harmonies are wrapped around eclectic beats. I hear gospel and a vaudeville element at work here especially on RR vs D which in its second half sounds like we are in a parade with a marching band or even at an old-fashioned circus. And is the hand clapping beat on RR vs D just a coincidence or is it a favorable, knowing nod to the french singer Camille who used handclaps to such great effect on her stunning song Au Port?

With AU and ‘Verbs’ Portland can be justifiably proud - another feather in the city’s cap. The album is released June 26th, 2008 and ‘RR vs. D’ will be released as a 7″ single on May 20. Keep up with tour dates at their MySpace page.

AU - RR vs D [MP3]

Camille - Au Port [MP3]

Wednesday, April 23rd from 6PM - 9PM
Nemo Design 1875 SE Belmont Ave, Portland, Or, 97239

The Recording Academy (aka the Grammy’s), NW Pacific Chapter Presents: PDX In The Mix, a panel discussion with Portia Sabin (owner, Kill Rock Stars,) John Askew (Film Guerrero, Producer, Film Scorer and Music Supervisor,) Tucker Martine (Producer, The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, Laura Veirs) and Mark Baumgarten (Music Editor, Seattle Sound Magazine) moderated by Dave Allen (Gang of Four / Nemo Design / Pampelmoose.)

The panelists will be discussing how bands and musicians can market, promote and brand themselves online. There will be a networking reception with food and drinks after the panel.

This event is free to Recording Academy and Grammy U members. General public admission is $25 and includes food and drink plus the cost can be applied to a Recording Academy Annual Membership.

To RSVP or Purchase Tickets please contact the PNW Chapter at +1 206 834 1000